Folk protestfolk
They Drove Woody Guthrie

A biographical folk song from the 1980s about political repression and mass media censorship during the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and the 1950s.

(chorus)
If you write too many songs and you side with the poor
And you refuse to be a wage slave
They will say you’re “insane”, they will put you away
Like they drove Woody Guthrie to his grave.

The capitalists got rich from the songs of the communist
Whom they kept hidden away with the insane
They marketed his legend while they took away his pen
Yes, they drove Woody Guthrie to his grave. (chorus)